Chapter 18
Montrell ran a hand over his face as he sat in the conference room among his men, waiting for Beatrice. He’d run away before she’d woken up. He’d had to. His cock was raring to go first thing in the morning, and he hadn’t wanted to make their time together about that.
No, he’d been perfectly content to hold her all night. To wrap her up in his arms and let her feel safe. To let her cry. It felt like a sign that she was finally understanding she was free.
He hadn’t wanted to shower that morning. He could smell her all over him, but under her inviting floral scent was the lingering odor of gunpowder from the ambush, and he knew that if he smelled that too keenly, he would get angry all over again.
He hoped there’d be more Albanians wandering around to kill.
Beatrice strode into the room in her sexy heels and another one of her slit dresses. This one hugged her curves. The way the material clung to her breasts reminded him of what she’d told him the night before—how her husband had literally carved her self-confidence away.
There would never be enough hell for that man to burn in.
As his gaze slid away, he noticed her bare arms, and a frisson of need ran through him. Her arms were pressed into her sides, partly hidden behind her delicious curves, but he could tell the pearl bangles were absent. She’d been clinging to those bracelets ever since they’d left Vegas, and judging by the way she hid her arms, she felt their absence.
But they were still missing. Beatrice was taking another step to move on.
And Montrell wanted the hell out of her in that moment.
He dropped his hands to his lap after scooting his chair closer to the table. Clearing his throat, he grunted, “Vespa,” in hopes she would take over while he got control of himself.
His friend raised an eyebrow but knew him well enough to start talking. She provided insight into the Albanian movements they had missed.
Montrell tried to pay attention. Beatrice was in no way ready for him to order everyone out and spread her naked on the table for him to devour, so he needed to stop thinking about doing just that.
When he was finally able to tune into the talk, he reminded himself to ask Vespa to give him a rundown of what he’d missed later. Wiping out the last of the Albanians was top of his list of priorities.
The scowl on Beatrice’s face made him realize she had just as high of a need for more blood as he did.
“We killed a good chunk of them with yesterday’s ambush. They weren’t expecting that.” Vespa’s smile was full of teeth as she slapped Montrell’s shoulder. At least it was the uninjured one. “Your instincts paid off again. I swear you’re psychic sometimes.”
He shook his head but let the rest of his tension ease. The chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “Did the rest go to ground?”
“Yeah, scattered like cockroaches.” Vespa shrugged. “They’re hiding pretty well again, which pisses me off.” Her eyes slid to Beatrice. “Got any ideas about where?”
Beatrice hesitated, her own scowl fading into a frown. “Sorry, no. The Albanians never trusted me with their business.” Her fingers dug into the material of her dress as her lips pressed together. Her eyes seemed to grow shaded with memories, but whatever they were, she wasn’t sharing.
Vespa grunted. “Well, we’ll find them. You might help with something else.” Her gaze shifted to Montrell. “The Lucchese are raising a fuss about the drop yesterday. They don’t seem to like all the attention the shootout caused.”
“I don’t give a fuck what they like,” Montrell said. His eyes focused on Beatrice. “Can we kill them yet?”
Beatrice let out a small smile that eased some of his anger. For a moment. Then her arm lifted in a feminine flick of her hair over her shoulder as she said, “Let me handle my father,” but he’d stop listening.
Her pale wrist had turned with the gesture, and for the first time, Montrell saw the healed scar down the inside of her arm. His ears rushed with noise that blotted out her next words. He squeezed his eyes shut as another voice filled his mind.
“This is what you want, isn’t it? This is what you both want!” his mother shrieked in his memory.
Closing his eyes only made the memory worse.
He opened them. Beatrice’s arm had dropped, but it didn’t matter. He now knew what was there.
She’d said she hadn’t thought she wanted to live. The words had carved him to the bone, but he’d never imagined that they meant she’d tried to unalive herself.
Not his Bea, who had had such vivacity back when they were courting. He wanted her smiles back, her laughter, that gleam in her eye as she whispered sneaky ideas in his ear. He wanted the way she’d fallen apart in his arms and been only his.
His gaze turned to the table, trying to bore a hole through it, one that he could crawl into and bawl, just as she had cried the night before.
His own insecurities from his upbringing had led to him tucking tail and running without all the facts. He’d been the one to leave her to that monster, not her father.
“Out,” Montrell said. His blank tone fell into the room, cutting off whatever was being said.
No one moved. He was going to lose his goddamn mind, and they were all there, staring at him.
“Out!” he shouted, his fists cracking down on the top of the table.
The men scattered. Even Beatrice didn’t hesitate, his show of anger feeding into the flight instinct he’d noticed and been so careful to try not to engage.
Vespa was always the one to stay. “Montrell—”
“Leave!” he roared, shoving to his feet to flip the goddamn table.
Vespa jerked out of the way in time. “For fuck’s sake! What—”
The chair he’d been in followed, crashing into the bulletproof window but not shattering it like he’d wanted. No, that would be too satisfying.
He didn’t deserve any satisfaction.
Vespa’s eyes had widened. She hadn’t seen him the last time he lost control. She’d been recovering from the attack his father’s men had inflicted on her.
Montrell failed to save everyone in his life.
“Please, Vespa,” he gasped, not looking at her. “Out.”
He was grateful when he heard the door click shut behind her.
Finally alone, he slowly and methodically began tearing the room apart. Each slam, each splintering slab of wood, did nothing to silence the voices inside.
“You didn’t kill your father for me,” his mother said, her voice so empty. “You had years to do that. No, the timing was all for yourself.” Somehow, her image overlapped with Beatrice’s.
“You knew how it was,” Beatrice said. “Why didn’t you save me before now?”
And it wasn’t his father coldly watching his mother slit her wrists in his memory. It was him standing by and watching Beatrice.
He couldn’t fight his inner demons, so he took it out on what furniture there was left. He punched and slammed until his hands were bloody. As he slid down the farthest wall, lying among the rubble he’d created, his mother’s voice faded.
His head fell to his knees as the blankness he’d been searching for seeped in.
The click of the door wasn’t enough for him to lift it. Neither was the shove against broken wood that followed. Let Vespa deal with it herself.
Only it wasn’t Vespa’s voice that muttered as some of the debris was lifted away so the door could shut again.
Shame wormed its way inside, blasting the calm away.
“I know I raised you better than this,” Giulia said as she lowered herself among the debris beside him.
He hated that her voice reeked of disappointment. “You did.” The words made his throat ache, and he wondered how much he’d shouted to make it that way. “You were always the one taking care of me.”
Giulia snorted. “You’re old enough to take care of yourself now. Start acting like it, Montrell.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his tongue thick in his mouth. He thought he’d held off the tears. Now that the anger was gone, the urge to bawl like a baby was slipping back in.
Giulia leaned against his thick arm, one of her own snaking around to his back. “You’re a good boy. Don’t forget that.”
He shook his head against his knees. “I never helped her.”
“This isn’t about that wife of yours, is it? You’ve let your mother back in your head. Don’t get the two confused.” Giulia’s hand began stroking his back, reminding him of how he had touched Beatrice the night before. Of course it did. Giulia had been the only one to comfort him as a child. He’d mimicked her type of care because it had been the only care he had known.
“How can I not compare them?” He opened his eyes to stare at his slacks. “She has scars,” he whispered. “On her wrists.”
“I’ve seen them,” Giulia said, her voice emotionless.
Montrell lifted his head with a frown. “How?”
Giulia snorted, letting her arm drop away. “She slept naked that first night. You’d know that if you went to her then. It’s not right, you two not sleeping together.”
“Her husband raped her.”
“You’re her husband now.”
He wrapped his arms tighter around his knees. “I thought it was Beatrice who needed time, but I’m the one who’s afraid.”
“Everyone feels fear. Only cowards let it hold them back.” Giulia lightly whacked the back of his head. “I didn’t raise a coward, did I?”
“No, Miss Giulia,” he said, feeling like the scolded little boy he used to be.
“I’ve been trying to stay out of things. It seemed like you two were making good progress. Did something change?”
“I just saw the scars today,” he murmured. It had been a brief sighting, but the image of her arm was seared in his mind.
“Don’t you dare judge her.” Giulia turned to glare at him. “Did you even ask her for the story?”
“Not yet,” Montrell admitted. “I kind of lost it and…” He waved his hand around the room. “It made me realize how badly my wallowing in self-pity hurt her. First I failed my mother. Then—”
“You didn’t fail your mother. She failed you.” Giulia’s face hardened as it often did when they talked about his mother. “If she hadn’t used you as a punching bag, you’d have wanted to do more.”
“She was hurting,” Montrell said. It was difficult to remember how life had been.
“And she wanted everyone else to hurt,” Giulia said. “Especially the innocent child who was too young to understand why his mother was beating him.”
Montrell swallowed. “I understood.”
“No, you took it on yourself.” Giulia’s hand reached up, patting his cheek.
Montrell wished another hand would cup it instead. He was so goddamn selfish.
“Blaming yourself never made things better for your mother.” Giulia’s face slipped into a frown. “It won’t help your wife either.”
“I should have fought for her.”
“Use your head. You’d just taken over the family from your father. Did you have the power to take on the Lucchese back then?”
He’d still been proving himself to his men. He’d been licking his wounds from the Lucchese’s sudden rejection when some of his father’s men had turned on him. Vespa had caught the brunt of it, and he regretted how blind he had been.
If he’d gone to war with the Lucchese over the failed marriage contract, it was likely he would have been fighting on two fronts.
“Still—”
Giulia jabbed him in the side. “Stop letting your mother talk. She tried to convince you to take your father on too soon. Almost got you killed as a teenager.”
“You had Vespa and me locked up in the basement,” he said, relieved and bitter at the same time. His first loyal men, or he’d thought they were loyal at the time, were killed that night. They took the blame so Montrell could live. Giulia was frightening in her skill behind the scenes sometimes.
Her eyes held no regret as she stared at him. “You deserved it. Your father killing his men brought others to your side. And you grew up enough to gain some skill along with the loyal soldiers I helped groom for you.”
“Waiting led to my mother losing hope.”
“I didn’t do it for your mother. I did it for you.” Her hands came up, gripping both sides of his face. Her hands made him feel small. “It was worth it to see you here. You’re my son, Montrell. You always have been.” He nodded, and Giulia released him. “Besides, your mother is still alive, acting all helpless with that Irish family she ran back to.”
Montrell ignored the way she spit out the word ‘Irish.’ “I understood why she didn’t want to come back.”
“Oh, she knew better than to come back.” Giulia’s face went hard again.
Montrell had never blamed his mother for what she’d done to him. Maeve O’Connell had been in an impossible situation, and she’d found release in a toxic way, but she couldn’t help it. He’d never wanted her dead for it, and so he was glad she’d tried to take her life in front of him.
That way, he’d been able to save her.
He wondered who had saved Beatrice. The idea that it had been the Albanian prick who had caused her suffering in the first place made him scowl.
“Are you getting all riled up again?” Giulia asked.
Montrell didn’t bother denying it. The silence stretched between them until he broke it. “I wish I’d been the one to kill her husband.”
“You always did have a savior complex.” Giulia groaned a bit as she shoved to her feet. It made Montrell focus on her face, and he saw the addition of wrinkles for the first time.
He was grateful Giulia didn’t see the worry on his face. She was too busy scanning the mess he’d made of the room instead. “I don’t like you throwing a fit like this, but I’m a bit relieved as well. Explosions like this happen when you hold too much of yourself inside.”
Montrell stood, too, tugging on his beard. “I thought I had it under control.”
“Maybe too much. You should be able to be yourself around your wife.”
He looked at Giulia in surprise. “Do you not like Bea?”
Giulia shook her head. “I’ve been watching her. I like what I’ve seen. She’s nothing like your mother, Montrell, despite the similar circumstances.” She frowned. “But if you can’t see those differences, then she’s not for you. You could get the marriage annulled.”
The idea of losing Beatrice sent acid into his stomach. “I—”
“You haven’t brought her by the restaurant for me to feed,” Giulia accused.
Montrell blinked at the change of subject.
“Bring her by tonight. It’s about time you take your wife on a date. I’ll close up early.” Her stern look was back. “And you two can talk.”
The idea of sitting with Beatrice in his favorite, dimly lit restaurant was appealing. He used to conduct business out of there regularly. It was a safe place, even when he was a child, despite its links to the business.
“But, Montrell,” Giulia warned, punctuating her point with a raised finger, “you have to be honest with your wife tonight.”
He frowned. “I’ve always been honest with her.”
Her eyes studied him, but some of her scowl eased. “Then I’m worrying about nothing. Now, you clean this mess up. It’s not for your men to clean up your tantrums.”
“Yes, Miss Giulia,” he murmured. The conference room really was a mess.
Giulia nodded with satisfaction, careful as she made her way back to the door.
“Beatrice is the wife for me,” Montrell said, watching her pause to consider his words. “I can’t help wishing I’d gone after her years ago, but I don’t regret having her here now.”
Giulia shook her head. “Wishing for the past to change is a waste of time. Every step led you both to today.” She shook her finger at him. “You’re not God, Montrell. Don’t get too full of yourself. Remember, we’re on His timing, not our own. He knows what He’s doing.” She slipped out of the room.
Montrell wasn’t a religious person despite how hard Giulia had tried to make him one. He’d seen too much to believe there was a pattern to the world, but the idea that he and Beatrice were meant to be together was a nice one.
He looked around at the mess he’d made. Hopefully his sudden temper hadn’t ruined what he’d built with her so far.